Elections

Hamilton has been experiencing a slow-motion crisis in housing affordability. Do you support an expanded role for the City to provide more affordable housing? If so, what should Hamilton do? If not, why not?

Responses to the question: "Hamilton has been experiencing a slow-motion crisis in housing affordability. Do you support an expanded role for the City to provide more affordable housing? If so, what should Hamilton do? If not, why not? "

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Yes, I support more affordable housing. We should encourage building affordable housing on city owned lands, e.g. land acquired for the stadium, repurposing buildings and develop them for housing. Hamilton has to improve transit and accessibility right across the city which will allow affordable housing in other areas. this issue seems to be concentrated in the lower city.

The Housing crisis is not exclusive to Hamilton but is certainly a dominant issue that we have been very serious about tackling as a municipality. This past term of council, we devoted 50 million toward restoring and creating new affordable housing units. You would be hard pressed to find another city government that has made as significant a local commitment to affordable housing. In the downtown, Council has supported my efforts to provide housing opportunities where currently City surface parking lots exist (Bay and Cannon/King William near Wellington/191 York).

In the coming Council term, with these and other confirmed projects, we will see more than 300 new units of affordable housing in ward 2. At the same time, seeking further opportunities through partnerships and new planning policy (DTSP) to build more in ward 2 and beyond.

Of course, we need to make certain we receive our share of the Federal Governments 40-billion-dollar National Housing Strategy.

Guiding our efforts in addressing this crisis, is the 2013 Council endorsed and approved 10-year Housing and Homelessness Action Plan for Hamilton.

We have been and must continue to expand our role in providing more affordable housing options.

Yes, I support an expanded role for the City in providing more affordable housing. In part, I think that this must be mandated more clearly through implementation guidelines attached to the “Downtown Secondary Plan”. This means inclusionary zoning for new developments, community benefits agreements (CBAs), and incentives for new laneway building. If we don’t have these guidelines in writing, with clear implementation goals, then we’re not going to hit the necessary targets. While the work we’ve done to provide affordable housing in Hamilton is good, we must do more to close the tremendous gaps that exist. We also need to approach each type of affordable housing in a way that demonstrates not only sound planning principles but an effective and meaningful approach to community consultation. Finally, the City needs to find ways to lobby with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), and on their own, to push for partnerships from other levels of government. Affordable housing is not just a Hamilton issue or even just a “municipal issue”, it’s something that impacts every person living in Canada and we need to work together to stop this crisis from worsening and to make some meaningful improvements. This ultimately means more partnerships with organizations already providing affordable housing like Indwell, the YWCA, and the Good Shepherd, and taking examples from cities, like Waterloo , who are leading the way.

Yes, the city can provide incentives to homeowners to create affordable units within their homes as well as ensuring new developments have a significant amount of truly affordable units to get approved.

The RGI program has a long waiting list with limited not for profit housing participation. The Portable Housing benefit only permits 3000 Ontarians and you must be on the RGI waiting list to qualify. It only offers 80% of market rent therefore rent is still unaffordable and most low income families are paying full market rent.To answer your question, I support more affordable public housing development. I applaud meeting the need of seniors RGI housing projects in Ward 2 and 4.. More can be done to meet the need of singles and families. I support the Secondary Plan and ask that if the 30 story limit is exercised, that 20% of all new development be RGI housing. Can the Portable housing benefit restrictions be addressed so more low income people can have subsidized housing while waiting for RGI housing. Not for profits agencies (Housing Help and T2H) are doing their part in advocating for low income and homeless people. Efforts on the part of City housing and The Landlord Tenant Board to be more proactive in identifying substandard housing and illegal landlord practices would decrease displacement. In addition, oversight of all private bids to prevent purchases of rental properties for the purpose of land speculation and the consequential displacement of residents. A unified collaborative effort of all partners providing housing oversight and support is needed.